today we're looking at the election of 1876 and the compromise of 1877.
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for more resources that go along with many of the bell ringer videos in the years following
the civil war the nation went into a time period of reconstruction attempting to piece the country
back together after four years of bloody fighting during this time amendments were
added to the constitution to protect the rights of former enslaved african americans and give
them voting rights all of this while there were strong racially motivated opposition from many
southern states organizations such as the ku klux klan formed during this time and sought to make
sure african americans did not receive rights that they were guaranteed by the federal government
since the civil war the republican party had held control of congress and for the most part
the presidency with ulysses s grant as president from 1869 to 1877. however grant's presidency
had been plagued with corruption and scandals and that combined with an economic depression in 1873
began to allow the democratic party to gain more power and actually democrats took control
of the house of representatives in 1874. plus many northerners began to blame reconstruction
policies and the extension of rights to african americans as being a contributing factor to the
economic depression add to this the fact that the u.s supreme court had made decisions stating that
the 14th amendment which guaranteed basic rights to all u.s citizens only applied to
rights guaranteed by the federal government and not by states then the supreme court went even
further and said the 14th amendment's guarantee of due process and equal protection of rights
can be violent can be violated by state but could not be violated by an individual or a person
so now trying to bring anyone or an individual to trial such as members of the ku klux klan and
punish them for racially motivated violence and attempting to take away african-americans rights
taking them to trial was nearly impossible so it was in this environment that the election of 1876
took place the republican nominee was rutherford b hayes the governor of ohio and the democratic
nominee was samuel tilden the governor of new york in the election tilden won the popular vote
by over 250 000 votes but was short one electoral vote of the necessary 185 electoral votes to win
three states louisiana florida and south carolina all had votes that were extremely close and were
being disputed together these states accounted for 19 electoral votes so basically whoever won these
states would win the presidency unfortunately the u.s constitution did not have a solution to
the election so now congress began to debate what to do the house was controlled by democrats while
the senate was controlled by republicans they agreed to create an election commission with five
house members five senators and five supreme court justices the commission would have seven democrats
seven republicans and one independent but supreme court justice david davis who was the independent
dropped out and he was replaced by republican joseph bradley this now gave the republicans the
edge and in march of 1877 the commission gave all three disputed states to republican rutherford b
hayes making him the new president now you would assume that democrats would be irate about the
this decision however there had been some hidden agreements that had taken place as the commission
looked at the election results rutherford b hayes met with leaders of the democratic party and what
they worked out became known as the compromise of 1877. hayes agreed that if he became president he
would pull back federal troops who had been in the south to ensure that reconstruction
policies were followed and he would also name a southerner to his presidential cabinet he agreed
to do this if democrats did not argue against the commission's decision to make him president
democrats also agreed to protect the civil rights of african americans in southern states
so after the inauguration of rutherford b hayes in march of 1877 on april 24th of 1877
hayes lived up to his end of the compromise and ordered the withdrawal of federal troops
from the south this withdrawal basically was the end of reconstruction and unfortunately
the democratic party did not live up to their part of the deal of protecting civil rights
instead democratically controlled southern states began to reverse as many reconstruction policies
as possible and took away as many rights as possible from african americans the election
of 1876 and compromise of 1877 resulted in racial segregation being imposed in
the era of jim crow laws being put in place throughout the south african americans were
even more heavily discriminated against in these states and unfortunately the state governments
upheld those decisions so with that hopefully you learned something and thanks for watching you